Month: October 2012

-Both the United States and Mexico advanced to the final stages of World Cup qualifying last night. The U.S. beat Guatemala 3-1, Mexico defeated El Salvador 2-0. The final qualifying stage will begin in February 2013.

-Yesterday's day of World Cup qualifers had a couple of goofy memorable incidents. The Mexican National Anthem was played instead of Ecquador's prior to the Venezuela-Ecquador match that took place in Venezuela. In Chile, one of the refs ask Lionel Messi to take a picture with him after the match between Chile and Argentina.

-The UTEP Soccer team was superior to a 16th ranked UCF team on Sunday afternoon despite losing by the minimal difference. UCF demonstrated no offensive dynamic and was one dementional, something that UTEP figured out and contained with relative ease. Keep in mind that UCF's gol came off a set pieces play. I did notice that Jade Babcock's offensive attack did go unaccompanied by the rest of the team more than a couple of occasions on Sunday. I'm sure that UTEP's head coach Kevin Cross and his coaching staff are on top of this observation and will address this prior to the next game.

The UTEP Soccer team demonstrated that it is clearly, without a doubt, one of the better soccer teams in Conference USA when it defeated No. 22 ranked Memphis 4-1 at University Field on Sunday afternoon. This was first time since 2010 that anyone had defeated the Tigers in conference play.

In my opinion this victory more than solidifies my idea that this team is a lot better than its current 2-4 conference record. UTEP executed all the things that it needed to do throughout the 90 minutes of play in order to get the victory over what is the class of Conference USA.

UTEP head coach, Kevin Cross stated that no adjustments were really made at halftime and that his team just needed to stay with their game plan.

The Miners tightened up defensively in Memphis territory the entire 90 minutes making it difficult for the Tigers to get things going offensively. They were smart as to when to be physical, and aggressive against Memphis in order to break up any kind of rythm that Memphis would be looking to get going.

Some of Memphis' best players, including Conference USA Player of the Year Christabel Oduro, were clearly frustrated because the fact that UTEP was so tight and physical on their defensive mark.

Azia Nicholson was phenomenal in shadowing Oduro the entire game which lead to no real threat on Oduro's behalf for 90 minutes.

Offensively speaking for the Miners, Jade Babcock's transition to the forward position seems to be just about complete. The thing that stood out for me the most from Babcock's performance on Sunday was the way she moves and breaks without the ball.

There was several times that she moved towards and found the hallow spots on the offensive-third of the field with good instinct and relative ease. What is even better is that the rest of the UTEP team is wise enough to get the ball to her making for very quick offensive threats on UTEP's behalf.

Finally, after the match coach Cross alluded to the fact that everyone on the Memphis squad except for the goalie and two center defenders are an offensive threat and can put the ball in the back of the net at any time.

With this UTEP team, I would match that and raise it by two, because the last time I checked Kenah Linger and Hannah Asuchak (UTEP's center defenders) aren't bashful to pull the trigger from 25 yards out or further.